Damnos Expedition
The Damnos Expedition, like The Plaguing of Northrend, is a sub-campaign of both Blackstar and Apocalypse. It follows a team of UN expeditionaries, dubbed the Interlopers, as they explore the island of Damnos. Map Storyline Introduction Having signed up for a potentially ground-breaking exploration of the island of Damnos, the Expeditionaries find themselves summoned to Loveshack to meet General Fitzwilliam, the United Nations Commander-In-Chief. He explains the situation; the radiation reading over Damnos, which had been holding steady ever since the detonation of the Machine God’s warhead in almost two decades ago, suddenly dropped to zero for half an hour before returning to the previous level. Every test the UN could think of indicated the same thing, and all that is left is to send a team of volunteers. The half-hour window allowed the UN to get satellite imaging on the island, and they detected a massive thermal signature in the centre. The objective of the mission: find out what, if anything, caused the blip in the radiation readings, and identify the thermal signature at the centre of the island. The helicopter leaves in two days. Arrival After getting acquainted, the Expeditionaries leave for Damnos. When they reach visual range of the island, it is almost exactly as expected; a desolate ruin. In the distance, however, they see the Steel Tower – an instantly recognisable building that none of them remember from the Avengers’ mission reports. As the helicopter swings in to land, it is hit by an EMP blast from just offshore, and crashes just inside the airfield. The helicopter is a wreck, and many of the group sustain serious injury. Most of their equipment is broken. After collecting themselves, a brief exploration of the airfield reveals a mysterious Tide Aircraft. Leanna can find the on switch, but that’s about it; the craft is completely alien to her. Jarret comments that the Steel Tide don’t usually operate like this; Tide craft are usually automated, and their design is rarely so advanced. In fact, Jarret is generally confused; the Steel Tide cannot operate without a server, and of the known servers two are dead and one is in Outland. There should be no functioning Tide technology on the island. Lexis suggests investigating the location of the blast that took out the helicopter, which Al supports, but Jarret suggests avoiding the people who tried to kill them and investigating the comms tower instead. Lexis changes her mind, and the group heads to the north-west corner of the island. Active Steel Tide? It is only once they set off that Jarret spots the Steel Tower – and is sent into a mild panic. The original Steel Tower, the one in Devil’s Crag, was destroyed. No replacement was ever built, let alone on Damnos; this must be new – but that would mean active Steel Tide. There must be some other explanation. They don’t get far before Rhodes silences them; he can hear marching. Lexis identifies the source as Tide soldiers, and the group hides. The soldiers pause as they level with the Expeditionaries, but eventually pass. Jarret’s panic gives way to confusion. The lights on the Tide units reflect their server; blue for Solomon Masher, who is dead. Green for Sethos, who is dead. Red for the Machine God, who is in Outland. These units were purple. There is a third AI, and that’s a big problem. The group redoubles their efforts to reach the comm tower on the other side of the island. The Bunker Several hours later, as they round the island’s western peninsula, they almost trip over the entrance to an underground bunker and decide to investigate. In the tunnels below, they find a room lined with pods, one of which Lexis opens; inside, dirty and rusted almost beyond functionality, is a Tide soldier. They advance, finding themselves in a control centre. Jarret investigates, and finds he may be able to use it to reprogram some of the Tide units. He starts by searching for the Machine God, who is not connected to the network. He then searches for all known AI, and receives three results. The locations of versions 1.0, 10b and 1.0c are unknown, but version 1.1 can apparently be found in the Steel Tower. In a mild panic, he asks for its identity – but the computer shuts down in response. The Expeditionaries press onward. The next chamber they reach is also lined with pods, though has not suffered as much damage as the last. Jarret opens one; inside, as expected, is a Tide unit, lit with a purple glow. Unfortunately, the opening of pods cascades down the hallway as the Tide in the room begin to activate. Jarret panics, and shoots the unit in front of him in the head with his shotgun at point-blank range; the head disintegrates and it collapses, but the other units are still slowly activating. Hitting on an idea, Jarret tells the others to hide and gives Leanna his shotgun. They hide in the damaged pods in the previous chamber, while Jarret bravely faces down the awakening Tide. After a brief confrontation, during which Jarret identifies himself, the purpose of the expedition, the size of the group and the authority under which they are acting, Jarret requests a connection to the server. To his surprise, it is granted and the Tide units retreat to their pods. The Expeditionaries are given the designation “Interloper”, and regroup. Further investigation yields the discovery of a small weapons stockpile, within which is found a new and powerful-looking Tide weapon. Jesus claims it, and christens it the Big Fucking Gun. On their way out, Jarret checks one of the room’s screens, where he finds schematics for a Tide Sniper Rifle. Lexis should be able to use it if they find one. On the way out, the Interlopers reach the last unexplored room. The computers here are attempting to run an activation command on the entire facility – and by the look of the log, have been trying to do so for a very long time. Almost twenty years, in fact; since the island was attacked by the Avengers. Jarret again tries to interface with the computer and take control of the Tide. He just barely succeeds in breaking through the system’s defences, but his options there are limited. Diagnostics reveal that, whilst some units are fully operational, many others are marked as physically responsive. Other still haven’t even reached that stage. All three values run into the hundreds; far more than the few pods they have discovered suggest. Jarret tries to bring the irresponsive ones online under his own designation of Interloper-1. The command is accepted, but does not succeed; these units are broken. Leanna repairs two and Jarret tries again to activate them, which succeeds – but he forgot to change their orders, and the units activating are under the control of the Machine God! Even worse, the floor is vibrating – looks like the hundreds of other Tide units are down there somewhere! The sounds of Tide weapon fire can be heard down the corridor, accompanied by flashes of purple and red. The Interlopers have inadvertently woken both sides, and now they’re fighting. They decide to run, somehow escaping the crossfire without injury, and Jarret locks the door – closing the door very narrowly behind the grenade Jesus had just launched inside and only just avoiding being blown up. After a moment’s recovery, the Interlopers head back towards the comms tower. The Communications Tower The trip there is uneventful, and the tower itself is unsecured. Lexis is able to use the map there to mark out the locations of various buildings across the island – including the Virus dock, which draws some interest from Jarret. He, meanwhile, attempts to use the systems to reach out to the UN – but as soon as he speaks, a dry metallic laugh reverberates around the room. Did they really think they would be allowed to leave, after all the trouble it went to get them here? It is not the Machine God, the voice says. It is everything he wishes he could be, and more – and no longer is it Masher. It’s not Sethos either. It says is a separate entity, with all of their strengths but none of their weaknesses. It sees what they have done, what the Machine God still plans to do. It refuses to sink to their level. Then, it makes an offer; it wants to help the Interlopers kill its brothers. When asked its name, it calls itself Ambition – or, if the Interlopers would prefer, Icarus. Asking how to kill the other AI is the correct question, it says, before breaking the connection. Before they leave, Jarret finds the schematics for a Tide aircraft – particularly similar to the one found at the airfield. They decide to head back to the airfield to attempt to activate it. Back to the Airfield Upon returning to the airfield the Interlopers find that, just as Lexis had expected, the Tide aircraft schematics they discovered match the one they found there. With Jarret’s help deciphering their contents, Leanna finds she can fly the plane relatively intuitively; this would allow them easy access to any point on the island, or to escape - were it not for its relatively low fuel supply. The Shipyard Still without a way off the island, he team decided to go with Al’s original suggestion and investigate the site of the blast that knocked their helicopter out of the sky. This turns out to be a shipyard, apparently designed to hold a familiar-looking catamaran aircraft carrier – and sure enough, the Virus can be seen floating some distance off-shore. As it’s the only other Tide vehicle they have so far encountered, Jarret suggests searching it for power cells for the jet. Unfortunately the rough seas and lack of vessels make reaching it difficult; they’ll need the jet to get there in the first place. The Virus The Interlopers return to the airfield and use the Tide jet to reach the Virus. The ship is listing badly and seems empty, but the hum of machinery can be heard from within. They begin to search the ship for power cells to expand the jet’s range. They eventually reach the ship’s engineering deck, which along with all of the usual components one would expect in a ship that size also contains a variety of rooms stocked with horrific automated medical equipment clearly set up to take restrained prisoners. Once they’ve got over the shock, the group recognise the ship for what it is; a mobile Bio-Transference laboratory. Even worse, it’s not fully shut down – some of the semi-sentient equipment tries to snare them as they pass, while other chambers appear to have shut down half-way through the process and still contain partly processed corpses. They briefly investigate one of these rooms when the “corpse” within manages to break free of its restraints and leaps at Leanna, before being swiftly put down by Jarret. On the other side of the engineering deck is the ship’s main reactor, which crackles with blue energy. This concerns Jarret – the arcing electricity is a sign of serious instability. In this state, it’s a miracle that it hasn’t gone into meltdown and blown the ship up already. This, he says, is where the blast that took down their helicopter came from. ]] While the group try to find a way down into the reactor without being obliterated, another power spike occurs and the reactor temporarily shuts down. When it comes back online the ship is bathed in emergency lighting – and the security doors on the engineering deck have opened. This might not have bothered the Transfers before, but now they know there is somebody else on the ship with them. Swarms of transfers head for the Interlopers and they are forced to flee the ship without the power cells they came for, but the circuitious route they take to avoid the transfers yields the Tide rifle they have already discovered the schematics for. Going Underground The group return to the dock and are preparing to leave when Jarret reminds them that there is an unidentified Artificial Intelligence active on the island – they do not know what it was planning and may not have time to return to Loveshack to notify the UN before it begins to act. An argument ensues, during which Jesus grows tired of the others and wanders off to explore the nearby area. Eventually and reluctantly, the group eventually agree that they must deal with the situation themselves. They go looking for Jesus, who is now missing – and find him sat on a rock, poring over a piece of paper. This, he announces, is a Tunnel Map found at the dock’s rail terminal; the rest of the group doesn’t really understand it when comparing it to Lexis’ map, but Jesus says he thinks the island is riddled with tunnels that can be used to get just about anywhere. He also points out a train tunnel that runs shoreward from the south-east corner of the island, almost exactly in the direction of Devil’s Crag – a possible escape route if they can’t find any more power cells for the jet. Recalling their previous encounter with the AI, Jarrett suggests that they could simply walk right up to the Steel Tower and knock, but this suggestion is shot down very quickly by the others who would prefer caution. Jesus waves his new map in the air and suggests they take the tunnels, which is much more readily accepted. The walk through the tunnels is long and uneventful, until the group arrive at a station. Jesus is confused by this, as there’s no station marked at their current location on the map. He wants to press onward, but the rest of the group overrule him on the grounds that, even if it’s probably not their destination, it’s probably best to explore anyway just to be on the safe side. Transfer Facility The complex beyond the station turns out to not be the Steel Tower. The Interlopers eventually find themselves in a room that looks largely like a repurposed silo, with small pods lining the walls and mechanical arms dangling from the roof. Gantries cross-cross the room both above and below. As the Interlopers enter this room, the shrieking of Transfers begins – and a moment later, the door swings closed and locks behind them and the machinery begins to operate. The Expeitionaries are forced to work their way across the gantry through the operating devices towards the open door on the other side. ]] The control room is massive, and right at the centre of it is an equally massive Transfer Drone. It looks like the whole room was set up specifically for it. When it spots the Interlopers, it attacks them – it nearly overwhelms them, but Jesus manages to take it out with the big gun just in time. With the transfer drone destroyed Jarret is able to shut the facility back off and open the door, explaining his theory that the transfers shrieking when they spotted them probably re-activated the drone, which in turn reactivated the facility. While the rest of the others are ready to leave, Jarret asks them to wait for a moment while he works on the computer. There, he discovers the specific details of the process of Bio-Transference, which are unpleasant to say the least, and the presence of a small storage room next to the control room, which he opens. Inside is a suit of Tide Armour, which Al dons. The Silo Further down the tunnel, the Interlopers encounter a blockage. The entrance to the Steel Tower, Jesus declares, is on the other side. He suggests finding the nearest station, surfacing, and attempting to go the rest of the way on the surface. The next station, it turns out, is another missile silo – this time one that hasn’t been refitted as a bio-transference facility. Inside is a huge missile, the warhead just level with the entrance. Said warhead has dozens of pipes connected to it. Jarret spots a computer terminal and heads over, but when he tries to connect with his assigned details he gets locked out and an alarm is set off. The Tide soldiers lower down in the silo begin approaching quickly, weapons armed. The Interlopers decide to flee, taking what shots they can at the Tide, and leave through the only exit they can. The Reactor The tunnel they exit through opens out into a massive facility, even larger than the silo. The room has two shafts dropping down on the left and right, lit from below with a mysterious blue glow. Corridors lead left and right, but in fleeing the Tide the Interlopers ignore them and press forward. The corridor they run down leads them directly to the central core of the Damnos reactor. The room is large and circular, with a glowing ball of energy in the center and no visible exits, but before they can turn to leave a force field cuts them off. A strange sound comes from behind them, and they turn to find a strange metal figure floating in the air. It introduces itself as the Emissary. It warns them that they should not be there – but calms when they explain they are seeking an audience with Icarus. As it leads them to the Steel Tower – which can only be accessed from beyond the collapsed section of tunnel – it begins to explain the situation to them. When Jarret asks how Icarus is here it explains that during his original reign, King Masher had a backup system built deep beneath Devil’s Crag, which was designed to allow him to survive the death of his current body. When the original – Primas - was “killed” by Cayden Masher this system activated, but it had gone unused for so long that it caused the AI to fragment. The larger portion, which was still Primas, gained a new “human” body and remained oblivious to the event. The smaller section, which called itself Icarus, did not – and remained trapped within the system. It successfully broke free and was able to flee to Damnos, but in doing so it caused a series of earthquakes which led to King Amaru to summon the Avengers to explore the undercity. ]] On Damnos, Icarus set about clearing the residual radiation and attempting to take control of and repurpose the island’s infrastructure. It constructed a new steel tower as a mainframe, along with a new reactor to power itself, and started work on creating a new body; a replica of the body used by its brother Simultas. It explains that Icarus’ goal is to finally destroy Simultas. Most of the group finds this a little difficult to believe, but Jarret is intrigued; he remembers Icarus offering a copy of its own source code to help the UN destroy his brother. Confronting Icarus When they finally reach the control room of the Steel Tower, Icarus addresses them directly and gives them a choice. From the control room, the reactor can be powered down – doing so will shut off Icarus’ power supply, destroying it completely. It will power down the rest of the Steel Tide on the island and put an end to the interference that prevented the Interlopers from making contact with the UN. Alternatively, they could choose to help it. In exchange for leaving it to its own devices Icarus will allow them to go in peace, providing Jarret with the original AI source code in the hope that it can be used as a weapon against the Machine God. ]] Exactly which option they chose is unclear, as the Interlopers are never heard of again. When the UN receives no response from them, they assume the island is still irradiated and the team are presumed dead. When the radiation dies down enough for another expedition to finally be sent, no trace of them is found. Damnos is a silent ruin, with no sign of activity since the rise of the Machine God. Category:Campaigns